


Impermanent

by distractionpie



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Cuba, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're left standing on a beach in Cuba and everything has fallen apart, but Alex isn't ready for it to be over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impermanent

If there is one thing Alex knows it is impermanence.

Nothing lasts forever. Eventually all things are broken, or lost, or cast aside, or taken.

Even prison, where he ought to have spent the rest of his life rotting away, had failed to last.

This set up, Charles Xavier’s little mutant dream team, is no different.

He’d already seen it crumbling, with snide words and sideways glares, Angel’s eyes full of apologies but her hand in Shaw’s, Darwin’s skin turning to dust.

Now it’s Erik and Raven, spouting platitudes as Charles lies broken in the sand.

“They’ll destroy us all.”

Hank’s and Sean’s gaze snaps over to him, and he realises that his words sound enough like Erik’s that they must suspect him of being on the verge of taking the same steps Raven just has. He walks forward, but his intention couldn’t be more different.

“We’re playing right into their hands,” he says, he’s not an eloquent speaker but he projects his voice across the beach and hopes his sincerity will make up the difference. “They’re treating us like animals, they’ve put us in a corner and made us angry and scared and now all they need to do is stand back and watch us turn on each other. If we do this now they’ll have won, we’ll have split our power and resources right down the middle and then what… you try and show them we’re dangerous and superior and we try to show them we’re safe and willing to co-operate? We’ll be stuck against each other for the rest of our lives and neither of us will ever be able to win. I was in gangs before this, yeah? And everything always ended up a mess, and you know when things started to go wrong? When people split up! Because all of, together,” he pauses here, makes a point of meeting not just Erik and Raven’s eyes, but acknowledging Hank and Sean, who’ve been nothing but loyal, and Charles who started this whole thing off, and Angel and Shaw’s two guys because even if he might not like them he can see their potential for usefulness, “We can be better than them, we are better than them. But only if we work together.”

He stops then, and really looks at the others, takes in their reactions and feels the heat rising in his face, because he’s not Charles, who really does believe in a better future, or Erik who knows so much about how the world works, he’s not even Hank who can at least claim to be book-smart. Even he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, not really, because they’re a disaster and they’ll never last, he just wants to cling to the fantasy a little longer.

He’s not meeting anybody’s eyes as he continues, gaze going right past the beach and the ships and focused on the horizon so that he can finish what he wants to say before the stupidity and shame of it block up his throat. “We need to come up with a proper plan. Charles needs a hospital, and we all need to be someplace where nobody is going to fire missiles at us and… and okay so maybe working together is a dumb-ass idea, but if we stop and regroup and talk then at least we won’t be working against each other either, because there’s no need for that, we all want mutant freedom and safety even if none of us really know how we’re gonna get it.” He swallows then, and puts the dryness of his mouth down to the salty air and faceful of sand he got when he and Sean first crashed down on the beach.

Nobody says a word.

But at least if he ever retells this story, he can say he fucking tried.


End file.
